For Whenever Any Of The Egyptians Visited Him
Bringing Food, According As It Had Been Appointed To Them Severally To
Do Without The Knowledge Of The Ethiopian, He Bade Them Bring Also
Some Ashes For Their Gift.
This island none was able to find before
Amyrtaios; that is, for more than seven hundred years the kings who
arose before Amyrtaios were not able to find it.
Now the name of this
island is Elbo, and its size is ten furlongs each way.
After him there came to the throne the priest of Hephaistos, whose
name was Sethos. This man, they said, neglected and held in no regard
the warrior class of the Egyptians, considering that he would have no
need of them; and besides other slights which he put upon them, he
also took from them the yokes of corn-land which had been given to
them as a special gift in the reigns of the former kings, twelve yokes
to each man. After this, Sanacharib king of the Arabians and of the
Assyrians marched a great host against Egypt. Then the warriors of the
Egyptians refused to come to the rescue, and the priest, being driven
into a strait, entered into the sanctuary of the temple and bewailed
to the image of the god the danger which was impending over him; and
as he was thus lamenting, sleep came upon him, and it seemed to him in
his vision that the god came and stood by him and encouraged him,
saying that he should suffer no evil if he went forth to meet the army
of the Arabians; for he would himself send him helpers. Trusting in
these things seen in sleep, he took with him, they said, those of the
Egyptians who were willing to follow him, and encamped in Pelusion,
for by this way the invasion came: and not one of the warrior class
followed him, but shop-keepers and artisans and men of the market.
Then after they came, there swarmed by night upon their enemies mice
of the fields, and ate up their quivers and their bows, and moreover
the handles of their shields, so that on the next day they fled, and
being without defence of arms great numbers fell. And at the present
time this king stands in the temple of Hephaistos in stone, holding
upon his hand a mouse, and by letters inscribed he says these words:
"Let him who looks upon me learn to fear the gods."
So far in the story the Egyptians and the priests were they who made
the report, declaring that from the first king down to this priest of
Hephaistos who reigned last, there had been three hundred and forty-
one generations of men, and that in them there had been the same
number of chief-priests and of kings: but three hundred generations of
men are equal to ten thousand years, for a hundred years is three
generations of men; and in the one-and-forty generations which remain,
those I mean which were added to the three hundred, there are one
thousand three hundred and forty years.
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